5 Steps to getting ideal clients

5 STEPS TO GETTING YOUR IDEAL CLIENTS AND PROJECTS

If you want to get your ideal clients and work on those dream projects this year, listen up because I’m going to break down for you in this video exactly how to do it.

It all starts with your mindset. And by your mindset I mean how you mentally plan and prepare to identify what your goals are, and then what do you need to do to achieve them.

Step 1

Identify your goal? If you don’t know exactly what it is you’re trying to achieve, how do you plan to get there?

Step 2.

Identify the problem that’s stopping you moving forward. You see, a lot of people tend to think like this “well, I’ve got this problem but I dunno. My business is too small for this to work or I’ve been in the game too long for this to work”

Basically, they’re just making excuses.

Step 3 is actually diagnosing those problems to get to the root cause.

And step 4 - is making a plan to fix those root causes. It could be, your website isn’t attracting the right people or its unclear on what to do when they get there.

It could be that there’s nothing really making you any different to any other builder other than your price.

Or it could be that you have no real business message so you’re not really talking to anyone. You’re just shouting out into space, and hoping someone answers the call.

Step 5 - is actually executing on your plan.

So what I’m going to do in this video is go through each one of these steps with you to really Break these down and give you examples that will help you adapt this kind of mindset to how you approach your own business.

So grab a pen and paper, and lets get started.

Step 1 - The Goal or what you want to achieve.

So you’ve probably noticed that a lot of times when you set a goal, they don’t really have much meaning behind them.

It could be I want to hit a certain revenue amount or get a particular job. Whatever it might be and when you hit that goal, nothing really changes.

You’’re like “yay that was cool, I did it, what’s next?” but it doesn’ really mean anything. It was more of a “want” than a goal because there wasn’t a deeper “why”.

So you need to look at this as more of a “what do you NEED to achieve”

A lot of people start with the want instead of starting with their need and those are two VERY different things. You “want” the nice car, but you NEED to bring in a certain amount of money each year just to keep the lights on.

See what I mean.

And then prioritize.

So you can have anything you want, but you can't have everything.

Now what does that mean?

There’s an old proverb that says “a person who chases two rabbits - catches neither”

If you’ve ever tried to catch a rabbit you know it’s a difficult task to begin with. So it’s certainly not going to be easier when a 2nd rabbit is included in the chase.

Specifically, what do you do when the two rabbits separate and go different directions? If you are following one in preference to the other, you ignore the other and follow your rabbit.

If you are still trying to following both, the tendency is to try to follow both, and split the difference between their paths. That leads to you going straight when one went left and the other went right. In short, chasing both means you loose both.

Why is a clear decision important?

The rabbit conundrum is an illustration of a failure to decide.

In short, you commit your focus and your action to the path you have chosen. If you aren’t certain, if you have not committed, if your decision is not firm, you face the rabbit dilemma. What will you do when you have an option open up? You will have to make another decision, and lose time, and probably both opportunities.

Right.

So that's why it's important to prioritize and decide on what the most important things are to you.

And then the next thing is, don't rule out a goal because you think it's impossible.

I've learned this over and over again.

I know some of you guys out there have business coaches right?

My own business coach has told me to set a goal on something and when I’ve shared with him what it was his first remark was “why are you playing small? You’re way more capable than that You can help more people than that” and this is something that thought I was stretching myself for and was almost an unachievable thing.

But I was thinking too small.

So don't rule out a goal because you think it's impossible. All right.

So lets move on and look at identifying problems.

So, you've got the goal now And that goal might be I want to do 5 big projects this year And I want all those projects to be with amazing cl’t come on site every other day, they don’t make big changes half way through things…. they’trust me to do the job. Right?

They don’t come on site every other day, they don’t make big changes half way through things.... they’re the perfect client. Right?

So the goal is to have, I dunno 5 $1m projects this year. Right?

But now we've gotta go into the next step,

which is identify problems Associated with that.

You're probably asking me, “why do I have to start like identifying problems right here? Well,

the thing is most people, right?

When they set their goals, let's say, for example, I want to run a marathon.

They go, okay. I am here right now.

And what I want to do is I want to get over there.

I want torun a marathon. So that's a goal.

What do I need to do to run the marathon?

And then basically they'll say, okay, fantastic. I just need to start eating better. I need to, start training. I need to, sleep better or so on, but not many people really goes, okay, what are some of the obstacles that's, gonna come up that will stop me from running that marathon.

What could potentially STOP me from me achieving my goal.

Then you need to then look at like, what are some of the possibilities?

So it could be, it could be an injury or the weather might be bad.

So now you're starting to identify possible problems that can come up.

And the reason why you want to, do that and why you want to look at like That is Because if you can avoid those problems, you'll have a better chance of you achieving your goal.

So I'm not saying like, when you have your goal in mind and then you've got the steps towards it,

that's the wrong way of thinking.

It's it's about looking at it that way, Which is the normal way most people do, but also look at it from the other perspective.

So you have two points of view.

So let's go into this particular one, which is to identify problems.

So identifying problems that are potentially stopping you and remember, problems = opportunities.

Okay. So I, I talk to a lot of people, a lot of builders, right.

And when I talk to them I’ll ask them what are some of the problems they’re facing at the moment and I’m usually“getting answers like “oh, it is the weather” or “it’” or “it’s th“it’s the banks” or it’lient…..

Right, I get it. It's not a perfect world.

There's gonna be hurdles along the way and things are going to happen. Something happens on EVERY job.

But then one thing, you know, I find like my best clients, the clients that just do really, really well, they are the ones that, you know, they go, okay, cool, stuff’s gonna happen but, problems actually equal opportunities.

Okay and if you have that mindset as a builder, or just even as a person, right.

Then instead of just going, oh, I've just hit a problem.

Okay It’s all too hard I'll just go and lie down. Right.

Then you obviously don't achieve anything, but it's, those builders that they,welcome problems.

They go, oh, Ok Here's a problem. Fantastic. They know "I've got an opportunity, right.

To make something out of this, which is just amazing.

Okay. Lets move on.

So now we go into the next one, which is don't dismiss or make excuses.

Like I said earlier, a lot of people they'll, um, a problem might come up and it'll be like, they'll make some excuse as to why this is happening to them.

Like, um, my business is too young.

Like I've, I've only just started like all cashflow is a problem. OMG I hear that one a lot.

Or like, um, what else is a problem? I’m up against guys who’ve worked in this market for ages.

There's like all these excuses That come up, right.

And the last thing you want to do is, dismiss that problem and believe there’s nothing you can do and it’s all out of your control.

Because again, most problems are opportunities.

And if you dismiss that, you dismiss the opportunity, right.

So the minute you start making excuses, yo’re dismissing the opportunity that’’s been presented to you which is hilarious.

So you’re saying to yourself “I'm too young or I'm too old he’s too experienced Therefore I shouldn’t achieve my goal which is silly, Right?

So before we jump into the next one, I just want to quickly go into some examples so this makes a bit more sense.

So it might be, uh, not getting enough inquiries is a problem or

not getting the right inquiries, clients or projects and you always have to say yes to the non ideal ones. Right?

So those are some problems that will stop a lot of builders from getting what they want or next one is I lose projects to other builders.

So again, all these examples are problems, that come up for a lot of builders that I talk with.

So now we're going into step three.

So now it's about diagnosing the problem. Okay.

So this is where like get to their root cause by asking what causes the problem.

Some examples of this is let's say obscurity, right?

So people don't know about my business.

So for example, let's use the, um, let's just go back a few screens.

So you can just see, so we've got here.

Some of the examples are not getting enough inquiries and not getting the right

inquiries.

Okay. So let's stick to those, for example.

So an example of a root cause could just be, well I'm, I'm in obscurity, right? So that means, people just don't know my business exists. Okay.

So that's one meaning of obscurity.

And then the next one is like skepticism. So people don't trust my business.

So again, you've gotta ask, why am I not getting inquiries?

And then the next thing is like, why am I not getting the RIGHT inquiries?

So root causes might be obscurity or skepticism from the market.

Another one is uncertainty. So people don't have confidence in you or your business and they’re not confident your business can deliver.

And this is a, this is one I hear a lot, especially with new builders to an area.

So young builders face this a lot when they've just started their business and are just going out on their own.

It’s also really common for builders who relocate their business from say Sydney to the South Coast which happens a lot.

And now they're entering a new market and they were like the most amazing builders in Sydney. And a lot of people trusted them, but now they're in new and people don't trust them and they don’t know them.

So it's that same kind of thing. So it's uncertainty and another one is clarity.

So people don't know what my business really do or specialize in.

This one is probably the most common thing that I see. If I were to guess I’d say this is about 90% of builders I speak to

They don't have a specialty or a type of project they specialise in Right?

So you go on their websites and they literally just do everything.

They do new homes, they do renovations, they do extensions.

They do granny flats, they do pools. They do literally everything.

Right. So what does that mean? That means there's no clarity.

And what does that, what does that do? Well, that means the market has no clarity on what your business really does.

They just see you as a generalist Or a “me too” builder.

We’ve all heard the phrase “jack of all trades, master of none” well that’s what the public see you as. They see you as a generalist that does EVERYTHING but there’s not ONE thing that they do really really well.

And what does that do? That creates uncertainty. It creates skepticism.

And then they basically move on to the next builder because there are a lot of builders out there. Right? In fact there are over 1700 builders who on Houzz alone, say they serve the south coast market. So that’s A LOT of competition.

So Those are just a few examples that I’ve come across.

Now you've gotta go into step four, which is make a plan to fix root causes.

So you've identified the problems.

You've not made any excuses.

you've diagnosed those problems to get to the root cause

And now you're going to make a plan to fix those root causes.

Because if you fix the problem of obscurity, for example, like people don't know about you, right. What is that going to mean for your business

That means now people know about you now you’ve got more chance of actually getting inquiries and so on.

So that’s just one quick example for you there.

So now let's go into make plan.

So if root causes are fixed, it automatically moves you closer to your goal.

That's one thing you have to understand. Each one of these steps just takes you one step closer to achieving your main goal.

So again, a lot of people think let's set my goal and let's take a lot of action.

So I.e the marathon, you know, I wanna run a marathon.

Let's start training really hard, that's it?

They don't even look at like, what are some of the possible problems and root causes so that if I fix that

root cause what does that mean to my business and what does that do to get me closer to my goal?

So some example root causes might be again, obscurity, skepticism, uncertainty, clarity.

You might be thinking those are the ones I literally just went through. Okay.

But the thing is, you need to start here.

So for you as a builder, you're watching this, or you're listening to this and you are asking, which one of those root causes should I start with?

Which one should I fix first? And In my opinion, it's clarity.

You've gotta get clear first on who you, you are as a business,

you need to get clear on Who do you focus on helping?

What do you actually do?

Do you specialize in renovations?

Do you, um, specialize in a, in a specific type of renovations?

What do you actually do?

You've gotta find clarity first and then go from there.

So you're probably asking how do I do that?

So this is, I'll just tell you what our builder clients do. Right?

So they normally get a really good website, where the messaging is Super clear as to what they do and who they serve,

the images are relevant to their business and what they focus on and what they specialize on.

So for example, they don't show great any flats if they only do custom luxury new homes.

Okay. And the other way around as well, if you just focus on granny flats don't go show renovations or extensions. Just show their granny flats because now people now that’s what you do and that'll build

certainty and so on.

Right. And then the next thing is on that website, they've got clear stories, okay.

Stories that the market can resonate with stories that will emotionally connect with the market, make the market feel trust.

Like they can trust the builder, make the viewer warm and fuzzy when they look at that builder, right?

You've gotta understand, like, you might be a builder and you are thinking in terms of building

and project management and finances and team and, and running a business.

But on the other side, are the clients,

what they’re thinking about is their dream home or whatever their goal is. Right?

So again, we need to make it about them and their journey.

And that's why it's important to put your story on there, put your client's stories on there and showcase your projects that way.

So you need a client focused website messaging with clear purpose and a next step.

And then the other thing you need is, again, like I just said before is really powerful story because you need to overcome that problem of uncertainty.

So you need to showcase your business story to build certainty.

And then the other thing you need to do is tackle skepticism. You need to overcome that problem.

So you need to create multiple case study stories from past clients and project

stories, project photographs.

Because again, this will build that certainty.

It'll overcome that skepticism it'll show the market who you actually are and who you've helped in the past,

like someone going down the path of building their home or doing a huge renovation, right? That's a huge step.

That's a, it's not just a, a quick little purchase where they, you know, browse the internet and they like what they see and they check out, it's not like that.

I literally had someone tell me the other day “we’re asking someone to buy 4 Ferrari’s in 1 transaction. That’s realistically what our projects cost.”

You need to understand that people are skeptical and they should be. There’s a lot of dodgy brothers builders out there, But it’s your job to overcome that skepticism.

And there's a huge opportunity for you as a builder.

If you can overcome that skepticism, because most builders don't do that.

They just see, they just try and like shove it under a rug. Right.

And it doesn't go anywhere. And then you need to overcome the obscurity problem.

So you need to implement Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube ads to get awareness from ideal clients. Right?

So it doesn't matter if you are the best builder in the world. Okay.

And nobody knows you, you live in obscurity.

You are the best builder, but people just simply don’t know you exist.

You need to get people to know about you.

So now, like you've, you've seen what I've just showed you there, not a good website.

You need your good story.

You need client stories and, project stories.

And you need, ads.

You need traffic to your website, but not only that you need to know how much traffic you’re getting, and how much you’re losing.

Here’s a fact, not 1 builder I’ve ever spoken to has been able to tell me how much traffic they get to their own website. Not 1. So if you don’t know how many people are going there, you have no idea how many people who maybe might have build with you, have left and given their money to someone else.

There is an untold amount of money, gone, that you’ll never see again and you had no idea about it.

So you need to have traffic tat converts and to do that you have to get people onto that and experience

your world as a, as a builder.

And the great thing about it is you can use all those stories to get people's attention, right? Using, um, like these ads and so on.

Not only that, you have to get their attention on the platform that they hang out on.

It's really important to know where your market actually hangs out and again, that comes from clarity.

There’s no point posting on tiktok if all your clients are on linked in. They’ll never see it.

That comes from clarity in what you want to do and what you want as a builder, because then you can look at the marketplace where they hang out and serve these ads and stories in front of them, get their attention, build that trust, right?

Get them emotionally connected to you before they even go look for a builder.

And that is what our builders do really, really well.

Our clients, they go out to the market before for the market, even wants to build and they're in front of them getting their attention, nurturing them.

So that's why it's really important.

And then you need to execute on the plan.

This is the last step of the process.

Don't dismiss, tolerate, or make any excuses for problems. Use them as an opportunity and execute.

And if you can't do it yourself, get the best people who can and how you do this is don't copy what the builder down the road does.

You can only do this by being yourself and telling your story.

As Gary See has said “steal from everyone - but don’t just copy from one” and what that means is get your ideas from a lot of different places and use those ideas to formulate your own vision and opinion.

Don’t just copy blindly what someone else is doing because the market will see through that.

You've gotta get clear first on what your goal is as a builder, right?

What do you want, what do, like, what do you need to achieve?

What do you want to achieve?

And then gain clarity as to, you know, how you're gonna achieve that and how you're gonna avoid problems that come up to achieve that. And then you build everything from there.

You've gotta be yourself and tell your story.

So again, you need to start with who is your market, know what they want, know their problems, know what keeps them up at night and enter the conversation that’s already playing out in their head.

Find what’s stopping them from getting what they want and then craft a message to fit.

Okay.

So who is the market and the answer isn’t “whoever pays me” which is what I’ve had more than one builder tell me.

This could be based on location, It's the type of clients. What do they do?

Are they professional? What,are they, what, what do they do?

Do they know exactly what they want.

What stage in life are they at?

Do they want a big home?

Do they want to downsize?

Do they want extra space for their kids?

What do they want?

And again, they don't want bricks.

They don't want concrete.

They don't want project management.

They want something for them, something emotional.

You've gotta understand and find out what that is.

And they know their problems.

What is stopping them from getting what they want?

One is they don't even know where to start. Right?

They, another thing is they can't do it themselves. Right?

They they're busy doing their own thing, right.

Living life like working, raising children, like they are already busy.

So you've gotta look at what is stopping them from getting what they want.

Because if you know what is stopping them from getting what they want, you can craft your message and say,

“Hey guys, I know what you want. I know what is stopping you.I can help you.

I can do that for you.

And look here are like some of my client case studies from past clients, uh,

case study stories, past projects that I've done, which is similar to what you want.

Look, I can do this.

That builds certainty.

It gets rid of that skepticism. Okay.

And then all of a sudden you've gotta fit.

You've got a message to market fit.

And now, you’re miles ahead of the next builder they’ll see.

You’ll be different.

All right. So that, so that's it from my side. Those are the 5 steps you need to take to get your ideal clients this year.

And look, It's not just me saying this. I know it works for me in my own business.

I've seen first hand the difference this can make to your business and this is a timeless approach that doesn’t rely on algorithms or the next best social platform.

These are tried and true, timeless principles that can serve you a lifetime.

And there's no better time than 2022, right. And if you don’t see this video till 2024, you can STILL do this.

So I highly suggest adapting this methodology to your own business if you want to be different, you want longevity and you want to do what every other builder isn’t doing.

Go out there and implement this and if you get stuck, I’m always here to help and I’d love to hear how youre going to implement this mental model into your life and

business.

Anyway, that’s it from me.

Have a fantastic day.